65. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Z oey
The soak in the tub wasn’t as long as prescribed. I was anxious to move the action to the bed.
It was easy to do the thinking part of the exercise—everything Steele does is sexy. I love looking at him. I love his soft skin under my fingertips and the hard muscles underneath. I love his tangy taste and his sexy scent that reminds me of spring rain.
As Emily Jane instructed, I picture the things he does to my nipples. It feels so good sometimes I almost think I can climax from it. But of course, I can’t.
Now that I’ve dried off and am lying in bed, I take the small pink vibrator Emily told me to start with and experiment with it on different places on my body.
It’s slightly pleasant on my arms and calves, interesting on my thighs and belly, and arousing on my nipples. I tell the computer to turn the lights off, then move the toy between my legs.
It’s pitch black in here, but my eyes shock wide in surprise when I touch below my mound. It felt like this when Steele put his tongue here. I pushed him away several times before he got the hint and never tried again.
I could just hear Papa in my head ranting and raving about race mixing. I didn’t even want to imagine what he’d say about a male’s tongue on a female’s private parts. Although I know exactly what he’d say—abomination.
Somehow, I can force my father’s voice out of my head when I give Steele pleasure. Maybe it’s because that was part of my indoctrination. Papa often talked about waiting until marriage, exactly who I should marry—someone within the church who was white—and he always made a point of saying it was a woman’s duty to please her husband in bed.
Of course, he never went into detail, and I was woefully ignorant that first day I arrived on the spaceship, but his intent was clear. So I guess the “please your husband in bed” edict trumps the “people who are different from you are off-limits” edict. My mind and body don’t seize up when I provide my mate pleasure, which is wonderful, because it’s a gift I love giving to Steele.
Earlier today, I watched as Steele swept a pile of old leaves out the front door. I imagine that now with my papa. I sweep him out the door and close it in his face. I even fantasize that he pounds with his fists for a while, but then he’s gone.
“Stay away, Papa,” I whisper.
The soft music playing in the background helps me settle back into the mood, and the scent of lemon verbena drifts in from where it enveloped me in the bathroom. Now it’s just me and the pink, bullet-shaped vibrator.
After a few minutes, I realize I need to open my legs wider. Even that movement makes me feel shameful. I’m so frustrated! It’s like I’m having a mental tug of war. There are so many prohibitions, so much guilt. I’ll never be able to put my guard down if all that junk keeps swirling in my head.
I focus all my thoughts down to one square inch of my body. My clit. Trying to push all words and thoughts out of my mind is hard, but I keep returning my awareness to that tiny piece of real estate. It feels pleasant.
I pay attention to the pleasant feeling, then go back through the list Emily helped me develop. I think of Steele’s sexy smile. I love when he’s playful, but there were moments, especially when we first got together, that his smile promised more. I realize now it was when he flirted with me. The “more” his smile promised was sex. It doesn’t happen anymore, but when I replay it in my mind, I see how seductive it was when an uneven smile slashed across his face and his eyes gazed at me like I was the only female in the galaxy.
Interesting, the feeling between my legs is more than pleasant now. There’s an edge to it. A hint of something better.
I picture him that first time he climbed between my legs and put his face there. Pushing all my thoughts out of my head, I just pay attention to how arousing it was, him prowling between my legs from the foot of the bed. All I could see were his silvery shoulders and his head of black hair shining as it bobbed.
Focusing on those feelings, I work hard not to relive the next moment when shame and guilt slammed into me. I pushed his head away and snapped my legs closed. I shove that thought to the back of my mind.
Moisture slicks between my thighs in response to these sexy thoughts. I push myself to keep going, even as I turn off the vibrator. I just picture my loving mate in hundreds of poses: sparring in the ludus , happily shouting “hooray for the cook” in the dining room, and working hard to learn how to read shortly after we freed ourselves.
It’s almost like some magical spell. My loving feelings toward him turn into arousal. It seems natural to open my legs wider and put my soles on the mattress so I’m fully open to enjoy this experience.
Instead of using the vibrator, I work up the nerve to touch myself. It was a huge prohibition in my family, but I jump over that hurdle and, for the first time in my life, I explore. I always assumed I was disgusting down there, but it’s slick and interesting. The folds are complicated, but I find the important bits.
The fountain of liquid dripping from my core isn’t gross at all, but it doesn’t really bring that much pleasure. When my hand explores upward, though, I find my clit.
I may not hang out with the women much, but I’m around enough to know they all have wonderful sex lives. And I’d have to be dead not to hear them talk about their clits. I guess I’ve found mine because it feels… interesting.
It’s just a little bump, but it’s sensitive. I think this is what Steele put his mouth on when his head was between my legs. This is what his dexterous, talented fingers have played with that causes me to gasp in delight, then get so frustratingly close to the elusive orgasm.
Hunkering down and giving myself final permission, I touch all around it, finding the spots that feel the best. Then I find the right pressure. It reminds me of the Three Bears—not too hard, not too soft, just right.
Then I stroke it in different ways and find a circular motion that makes me suck in a harsh breath. The fact this is so primitive scares me for a moment, but then becomes the catalyst to keep going. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying your body. No matter what my papa said, it only makes sense that God gave us bodies so we could enjoy them, right?
I catch my bottom lip between my teeth as the sensations swirling in my pelvis grow. They double and then re-double as warm sparks flare from the epicenter of pleasure that’s under my fingers.
I scroll through a montage of pictures. Steele in a towel, his silver skin beaded with water. Steele reaching up over his head to pull out his favorite weapon, the broadsword, from a scabbard on his back. Steele running on the treadmill in the ludus , wearing nothing but a loincloth, every muscle in his body on display for me.
While I was watching that internal show, my fingers kept circling without me having to micromanage them. I’ve worked my way to the precipice. I’ve been here before. It’s pleasure/pain. There’s so much promise of release, but it always ends in frustration.
Not tonight! I get myself as close to the edge as I can get. I’ve been here before with Steele. Countless times. My hand darts to the vibrator I left lying at my hip. I turn it on and put it in the spot I discovered gets me close.
“Oh!” I gasp. This feels good. Shocking. Scary. I keep it right where I need it and am surprised when my arousal kicks up a notch. I didn’t know my body could get this high.
I’m straining now, my bottom lifting off the mattress. Pressing the vibrator harder now, I keep trying. My nipples are pricked. The muscles in my neck are taut. Want has been replaced by need. I need release.
My bottom is pulsing up and down as I reach for the finish line. It’s biology. I won’t back down. Although I’ve been striving toward this for long minutes, the orgasm sneaks up on me. My rigid muscles spasm all at once, tightening, then loosening, then tightening again.
It’s a mixture of pleasure and pain and then it’s simply pleasure. Long moments of physical bliss that seem like they have no beginning and no end. I’ve allowed myself this, so I have no compunctions about fully letting go. I hear my grunts of pleasure as if they’re coming from someone else. They’re followed by a keening moan of ecstasy.
The rapture rolls to a slow stop and I’m overcome with fatigue. For one moment, I bask in the joy of what happened. I’m not broken! My body knows how to perform. I’m a complete woman. There’s nothing wrong with me. Nothing!
Steele always assured me I was a total woman, and he loves me just the way I am, but I’ve always felt broken, incomplete. Now I believe him.
I have a moment of optimism where I truly believe Steele will be able to share this with me and, of course I’ll be able to do this again. I remind myself there will be nothing wrong with that. I believe that biology trumps the shit my papa poured into my head.
Then everything comes crashing down. My papa’s voice is loud in my head. Maybe louder than it has ever been. The word abomination has been joined with the words harlot and slut. Good girls don’t touch themselves down there. Bad girls don’t deserve pleasure.
Hot tears prick my eyes as I roll over and hope I can drift off to sleep before Steele comes back. I’ve failed him again. Failed us both.
Steele
That I’ve had four shots of Sillerian whiskey with my friends tonight does nothing to dull my sense of smell. The moment I cross the threshold, I’m aware of a flowery scent that must come from Zoey’s bath, but underneath that, I smell Zoey’s arousal. It’s different from usual, more pungent.
I step inside, close the door, and breathe in deeply. Gods help me, but I’m sniffing for a male’s scent. It’s ridiculous for two reasons. One, I was with every male in the compound tonight. But more importantly, Zoey would never in a million annums be unfaithful to me.
Our retreat is barely more than one room with a small kitchen, couch, and a bed with a refresher off the main room. Although I should make a quick line to the shower, I detour to the bed to inspect her. She’s sleeping soundly, a peaceful look on her face. There are some days it’s the only time her face is at peace.
I’ve asked her a thousand times, maybe more, what makes her so unhappy. She always says the same things. First, she tells me she loves me and I never make her sad, then she tells me I wouldn’t understand. I’ve never let on that every single time she says this, it jabs a knife into my heart.
I wouldn’t understand because I’m too dumb? I was snatched from my front yard before I was old enough to go to school. Many gladiator schools don’t bother to educate their fighting flesh. Why bother to teach beasts to read? But I worked hard to learn shortly after we fought for our freedom. Perhaps even though I can read, she still thinks I’m stupid.
The other explanation crushes me even harder. She doesn’t trust me with her private thoughts.
This is the answer I know is true, and this is the one that makes my heart feel as if it’s cracking open. She won’t open—not truly open—her body to me, nor will she open her thoughts. She hides inside herself and won’t let me in.
I believed she loved me enough that I could ignore these glaring problems between us, but every day it grows harder to overlook. Her body’s response to me chips away at my self-esteem, and her mind’s refusal to share with me makes me doubt I’m worthy of love. I keep these thoughts at bay most days. Perhaps it’s the whiskey that has them cascading through my mind. My chest feels the tight squeeze of lonely sadness. And the pang of regret.
But I could never leave her. She loves me in her own way. Perhaps more importantly, she needs me.
I take a quick shower and slide into bed. Although she was facing me, she likes it when I turn her over and tug her back to my front. I like it, too. I take pride in being able to provide her some crumb of comfort.
What’s this? After I’ve turned her over, I encounter something hard in our bed. My heart pounds as I wonder if this is some local animal that somehow snuck into our snug cabin, but as soon as my hand explores it, it’s clearly a manufactured object.
Although no lights are on, moonlight drifts in between the edges of the curtains. I don’t need my eyes, though, to inform me that this little bullet-shaped object reeks of Zoey’s nether scent.
I can’t prevent myself from lifting it to my nose and huffing in a deep breath. I love this smell. My body’s attuned to it. My cock immediately hardens, but my mind rebels. What was my Zoey doing with this?
I slip out of bed and then out the front door to inspect it in the full moonlight. It doesn’t take long for me to figure out how to turn the little pink machine on. It vibrates, barely making a noise.
All the blood drains from my face and my muscles refuse to work. The little thing drops to the ground and stops producing its quiet hum.
My Zoey, my mate, bought a machine to put between her legs. My jaw tightens and I drop to my knees. I’ve fought huge Anthen warriors in the arena. I’ve been beaten and bloodied and sliced. I’ve never been brought to my knees like this.
I’d feel dead inside if I didn’t feel so miserable. I haven’t cried since shortly after I was stolen at age five. I’ve seen males in the arena whose abdomens were sliced open and their bowels spilled onto the sand. Perhaps they felt like I do now.
My mate didn’t seek pleasure in the arms of another male. Perhaps this is even worse. She sought pleasure from a tiny, pink machine. And by the smell in the room, she received it. This dracking machine gave her the physical release I’ve never been able to provide. Not in the two annums we’ve been together.
I’ve never wanted to die before. I do now.